How schools must handle diverse gender identities

In 2017 Nevada legislators passed a bill requiring schools in the state to establish policies for “addressing the rights and needs of persons with diverse gender identities or expressions.”

A month ago the state Department of Education published a draft spelling out changes to the Nevada Administrative Code to comply with the law. As written, the policy requires all school personnel and students to not only accommodate but support those born with one gender but who “identify” as the opposite gender.

“Each school or school district shall address the rights and needs of persons with diverse gender identities or expressions on an individualized basis to foster the safe and healthy development of the gender identity and expression of each pupil,” the policy states.

It also requires schools to create measures that “ensure that each person governed by the policy, including, without limitation, each employee, volunteer and pupil, does not use names and pronouns other than the names and pronouns identified by the parent or guardian of a pupil, as recorded through the registration and enrollment process of the school or school district, in reference to or in any verbal or written communication with the pupil …” Even students are required to toe the politically correct line.

It also requires all school board members and all school employees to under go “annual training concerning the requirements and needs of persons with diverse gender identities or expressions.”

Though the changes in the law are often described as an effort to counter school bullying, the requirement that schools “prevent discrimination, harassment, bullying and cyber-bullying based on the gender identity or expression of a person” takes up two lines out of the 57-line policy.

Of course, the aspect that will be of a greatest concern to parents and students is the use of facilities such as restrooms, locker rooms and showers that have long been customarily segregated by biological gender. In that regard the policy does not allow schools to “discriminate or segregate according to gender identity or expression …” referring specifically to physical education, assemblies, dances, ceremonies and other school activities.

The policy also states that sports participation should be “in accordance with the regulations and policies of the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association …”

Four years ago the NIAA published a little-noticed “position paper” on gender identity participation.

“A transgender student athlete at the high school level shall be allowed to participate in a NIAA sanctioned sport in accordance with his or her gender identity irrespective of the gender listed on the student’s birth certificate or other student records, and regardless of whether the student has undergone any medical treatment,” the paper declares. “This policy shall not prevent a transgender student athlete from electing to participate in a sanctioned sport according to his or her assigned birth gender.”

The paper is silent as to the use of the aforementioned facilities.

The new administrative code appears to leaves little room for school districts to establish any other accommodations for the gender diverse.

Though it sweepingly demands that schools create methods “to ensure the protection of the privacy of each person governed by the policy …” it is silent on how to protect the privacy of those who identify with the gender with which they were born. How much will it cost to build private restrooms, locker rooms and showers for everybody?

All females are born with a pair of XX chromosomes and all males with an XY pair. No amount of wardrobe changes, makeup, hairstyling or surgical mutilation will alter that. Nor will laws and policies designed to accommodate the delusion.

We thought you ought to know what is coming to a school house near you.

Sign Up for Email Updates

Comments

Obviously the Legislature doesn’t listen to Medical Professionals before putting forth a bill based on fake science. Must be related to the clown that invented global warming. There is no such thing as gender identity. Look in your pants. That’s what you are. People rebel on this quackery of BS. Ridiculous.

I am appalled by Mr. Mitchell’s ignorant opinion and comments regarding transgender individuals and their rights. In a atmosphere in which transgender students are bullied, literally to death, forced to leave or transfer schools, statements such as his only contribute to the acceptance of such behavior. Laws, policies and rules usually come about because of people suffering, dying and having their basic rights violated–not on whim.
Even if your cannot wrap your narrow-minded minds around diverse people, could you at least approach them with some measure of dignity and compassion? They are, after all, still human beings regardless of your opinion.

Conservatives, libertarians, and Donald Trump are also all human beings – for balance, even if you cannot (and I’m not saying that you can’t) wrap (narrow-minded) liberalism around diverse perspectives, do YOU at least approach THEM with some measure of dignity and compassion? Or are they exempt from such due to a differing opinion/perspective? Just curious.

One such perspective might be that there is a logical limit to what the government should be expected to regulate and finance. Just saying.

I am sorry that you do not agree, but every single human being have certain civil rights that the public schools are required to provide and enforce. The matter of cost and opinions is irrelevant when providing these rights. It is absolutely incumbent upon ever school district receiving any federal funding to find or make a way to adhere to these legal provisions. The concept of liberalism and conservatism are also irrelevant when considering basic human rights.

“The matter of cost and opinions is irrelevant when providing these rights.”

(Pretty authoritative and definitive.)

And also for the next one, and the next one, and the next one… and in turn, what would you like them to not build or manage for balance?

It is most telling that in a single statement you blend civil rights with human rights. I don’t know if you are willing (or able) to grasp that there is a difference. And frankly, ‘rights’ are slippery in that most recently (liberals in particular) are inclined to assign ‘rights’ to a seemingly unlimited number of things that might easily be held within a container called ‘stuff I subjectively demand for whatever well intentioned or momentarily justifiable reason’. In civil society (not a utopian Star Trek universe), things are created from things, and must also be justified in their distribution (and somehow financed).

That things come from other things is sort of an immutable fact in a physical realm. The simple fact that resources (all forms, including other people’s money) are not magically unlimited (despite someone altruistically demanding them) is clearly inconvenient (and often seemingly impossible for some legislators to grasp), but nevertheless unavoidable.

However, this is just the sort of petulant, ‘end of the nose’ reasoning that continues to be promoted by politicians seeking votes, and impractical sorts with unreasonable expectations. So, ‘required for the children’ sometimes runs smack into the reality of a finite universe and money failing to grow on trees whether you call (anything) a ‘human right’ or not.

In the meantime, it’s pretty slick to play an ‘ultimate’ ethics card in order to shut down conversation – discourse, debate, measurement, and fiduciary responsibilities all being necessary mainstays of the very ‘civil society’ you espouse. Frankly, true and lasting compassion actually starts within an intelligent and rational environment, not a childlike fantasy land where taxes (other people’s money) somehow conveniently never end. Even ‘for the children’ (or for healthcare, or for housing, or for education, or…).

There is a logical limit to what the government – and schools – should be expected to (regulate and) finance – because, like it or not, there are fiduciary limits to what and how much a publicly funded anything can and should demand. In response, maybe special interests should learn to rationally pick and choose their battles.

Hint: if all this talk of limits and responsibility with taxpayer dollars has you spitting nails, it is not a rational response. It is subjective and emotional response. Subjective and emotional isn’t exactly a good place to be coming from when it comes to managing anything within a public arena.